Illumination
by ElectricShock
Summary: A mild-mannered FBI agent discovers a truth he never could have anticipated. Original characters in a possible volume 4 future. Please review!
1. Chapter 1

When Agent Oliver West was a child, he knew exactly what he wanted to do when he grew up: interrogate prisoners. Granted, his goal wasn't exactly common, but he was adamant throughout his childhood and teenage years that he wanted to be an FBI agent who specialized in interrogation. He watched detective and crime movies fanatically, idolizing the characters who cross-examined the villainous criminals in rooms lined with two-way mirrors. That career was the only one he ever aspired to.

Oliver West's friends and family were not surprised when he joined the FBI. Soon after he earned his degree in psychology from a respectable college, he went to the FBI training academy to pursue his dream. He learned everything he could about questioning criminals, and he became a decent interrogator. Not exceptional, just decent. Despite this, it was clear that he was happier than just about every agent he met. He wasn't even thirty years old, and he was already living out his dream.

But he couldn't have anticipated where his dream would lead him.

For the first few months after graduating from the FBI training academy, Agent West spent his time shadowing experienced agents, learning all he could from their interrogation know-how. Then, he took on some small cases, questioning lower-end criminals on his own. He was gradually becoming better at his job, and he began to earn the respect of his co-workers. In short, his life was just the way he wanted it to be, and he was very content with the way things were.

After about a year of working for the FBI, Agent West received an important phone call. He was being reassigned to a new location, but he wasn't given any details about what he would be doing when he arrived there. All he was told was that his reassignment was a big step up from his current job and that only a few agents had been ordered to relocate there. It was an honor to receive that kind of reassignment, and Agent West agreed to the move without hesitation. A week later, a company plane flew him to his new assignment in New Jersey. He was given a room in a mediocre hotel when he got there and was told that he was expected to go to work the next day.

_This is my big break_, Agent West thought. _I'm living my dream._

********

The next morning, Agent West woke up early. He took his time when he was getting ready to leave.

He walked outside the hotel at 7:00 am, as he was instructed to. Five or six other agents, who all looked at least twenty years older than Agent West and who he did not know, straggled outside, one by one, until a large, black van with blacked-out windows arrived and pulled up to the curb. One of the agents approached the van's massive door, yanked it open, and hopped into the vehicle. The other agents followed him in. After they closed the door, the van drove away.

Agent West was surprised when, after an hour of travelling, the van hadn't arrived at its destination.

"How come it's taking so long to get where we're going?" he asked the driver, who apperared to be in his forties.

While glancing back at Agent West in the rearview mirror, the driver replied, "Cause it's a long ways away, that's why. Sheesh."

"I mean, I thought the hotel was kind of close to where we're headed," Agent West replied warily.

"It's not, kid. The place we're going is in the middle of nowhere."

Agent West paused for a moment, then asked the driver, "Do you have any idea what kind of facility we're going to?"

"Nope. They just gave me an address and a GPS."

Half an hour later, the van came to a stop outside of a large, bland building surrounded by barbed-wire fences. All of the agents filed out of the van silently. A man dressed in a typical military uniform met the agents outside of the van and led them to the building. It took half an hour for the agents to pass through the security checkpoints, and when they did, they were led to a big, sparse room. When they entered the room, another military officer was waiting for them.

"Take a seat, gentlemen," he said, gesturing to a few dingy folding chairs set up in front of him.

The agents were restless from sitting in the van for an hour and a half and tired from waking up early. One of the crankier agents, who appeared to be in his late fifties, spoke up.

"I'm tired of being kept in the dark like this," he said grumpily. "I've never been assigned somewhere with as many secrets as this, and I've been around a while. How do you expect us to do our job when we don't even know what in the world we're doing here?"

"I'll explain everything in just a moment," the officer replied patiently. "Just take a seat."

A few of the agents grumbled in aggravation. Agent West didn't let his frustration show because he didn't want to appear unprofessional, so he made his way to one of the old chairs without saying anything. The other agents sat down as well.

"Agents, welcome to the Petrelli Facility for Atypical Humans."


	2. Chapter 2

"You have all been chosen to come here because of your interrogation skills." the military officer continued. "You are experienced agents, and we have full trust in your capabilities."

Agent West gulped. _They must not have taken a good look at my file,_ he thought nervously. _I've only been an agent for about a year!_

"This facility is filled with prisoners who have been deemed by the government to be a threat to our national security, and we need you to find out if they have any affiliations with anyone else we need to take into custody. Plain and simple."

"If it's so simple, what do you need us for?" one of the agents asked, annoyed at the officer.

"In theory, the task seems easy, but these prisoners aren't like any you've ever encountered." The officer paused, intently scanning the faces of the agents in an attempt to make them feel uncomfortable. "The information I'm about to give you is classified as top secret. You are forbidden to divulge any of it to anyone. If you do, you would be considered traitors to the United States of America."

"We understand," another agent remarked impatiently. Just tell us already!"

The officer took a step towards the agent and looked at him sternly. After a moment or two, he went back to his original place in the center of the room.

"About a year ago, Senator Nathan Petrelli, the namesake of this facility, divulged information to the President regarding the existence of regular private citizens with…. abnormal abilities. Some kind of irregular genetic structure is capable of giving people special skills, apparently. Petrelli was able to provide enough information to prove their existence, and the President decided that they posed a serious threat to our nation. Because of this, the President ordered that all 'special' humans, as they are sometimes called, be captured and imprisoned. This facility is one of many prisons that contain these mutated humans."

_This is unreal,_ Agent West thought, shocked. _It can't be true…_

One of the other agents snickered. "Is this some kind of joke?" he asked mockingly. "It's impossible! This is the _real world_, not some freaking comic book!"

"I assure you, this is very real. If you want, I would be more than happy to send you back to your old assignment- and your old paycheck."

The agent was silent.

"Very well, then. Here's your prisoner's file." The officer handed the agent a file titled "Daphne Millbrook". He proceeded to hand each agent a file. "A guard will lead you to your prisoners' cells. Good luck. You are providing a great service to your nation."

Agent West glanced down at the file he held in his hand. It was titled "Lucy Tyler". As he began to open the file, a man in a non-military guard uniform approached him.

"Agent West, right?" the guard asked impatiently.

Agent West nodded.

"The name's Hudson. I'm the guard in charge of Section 4- that's where your prisoner is. Let's get moving."

Agent West followed Hudson through the narrow, dingy halls of the prison. Hudson was a hefty man, and he seemed to be pretty cumbersome while he was walking.

"So, Hudson," Agent West asked, "what kind of people are kept in Section 4?"

"They're all the same- a bunch of freaks," Hudson replied arrogantly, chewing gum obnoxiously with his mouth open. "There's no rhyme or reason when it comes to organizing the prisoners here. All the cells are maximum security. When there's an opening, we fill it."

After a few more minutes of walking, the two men arrived at a large, metal door with the phrase "Section 4" painted on it with black, peeling paint.

"Here it is, West," Hudson remarked tiredly. "Home sweet home."


	3. Chapter 3

Hudson opened the heavy door and exerted a great deal of effort doing so. Agent West and Hudson walked through the doorway, and the door clanged loudly when Hudson closed it.

They had entered a long, narrow room, about seven feet wide and fifty feet long. The wall on the left was lined with cells. Instead of bars, the cells were separated from the hall by thick metal, concrete, and a large window of shatterproof plexiglass.

A smile appeared on Hudson's face as they walked down the bleak, grey hallway. "These are my people- my number one fans," he said, gesturing towards the depressed prisoners in the cells. "I see the five of 'em every day, and I'm the only person _they_ ever see. Yep, I've been working at P-FAH for almost six months now, and they've been keepin' me company all this time." As Hudson and Agent West walked past the third cell, Hudson slowed down and turned to the prisoner, a woman in her mid thirties. "Isn't that right?"

She glanced up at him with disdain. "Bite me, Hudson," she said, her voice muffled by the plexiglass.

Hudson snickered. "Number one fans," he repeated.

"Is that Lucy?" Agent Hudson asked hesitantly.

"Aw, no, that's just Janet. Lucy's the last one." Hudson continued walking, and Agent West followed. "The next one's Matt, the newest arrival. He used to be sedated down in the basement laboratory because his ability was too strong for him to be left in a regular cell."

"Too strong for a maximum security cell?" Agent West asked, astounded, as he continued to move to the end of the hall.

"Yep. But the geeks down in the lab made some kinda helmet that blocks his powers. Now he can stay up here with the rest of us." He stopped and looked towards the prisioner. "Good afternoon, Parkman! How's it goin'?"

Matt Parkman, wearing a cumbersome, metal helmet, was sitting on the edge of his cot, looking down at his feet. With a defeated look in his eyes, he glanced up at Hudson without speaking.

"He must still be tired," Hudson commented to Agent West. "Let's go see Lucy."

Agent West followed Hudson to the end of the hallway. A shiny, silver outfit that resembled a spacesuit hung on a hook mounted to the wall. "Just in case she ever decides to put up a fight," Hudson explained. "I only had to use it once, right after she first got here. Man, was she a handful then! She's pretty tame now, though. Hasn't powered up in months." He and Agent West turned towards the cell. "I'll let you in."

Hudson swiped a key card to open the door to Lucy's cell. As Agent West walked into the bland, cold cell, he noticed that the room was sparsely furnished; a cot, toilet, and sink were located on the back wall, and a small, metal table with two metal chairs sat in the middle of the tiny room. Agent West sat in one of the chairs as he looked at the prisoner he was about to interrogate.

Agent West was surprised to notice that the prisoner in the room was a teenager, possibly around eighteen years old. She had brown hair and extremely pale skin, and she looked incredibly tired. As Agent West sat down and placed his file on the table in front of him, Lucy Tyler looked at him with curious, dejected eyes. Her expression changed for the worse, however, when Hudson popped into the cell.

"Hey there, Lucy," he said. "Be a good girl and answer all the questions this guy has for you, okay?"

She looked at him with dagger-like eyes.

"She hasn't been talking lately," Hudson said to Agent West. "Maybe she'll say something to you. I heard they picked you for this job 'cause you're young and they thought she'd relate to someone closer to her age." He looked back at Lucy and smirked maliciously. "Have fun, freak."

Hudson left the cell, locking the door behind him. And Agent Smith was locked in a prison cell with a dangerous mutant teenager.


	4. Chapter 4

Agent West looked across the table at Lucy Tyler. She stared at him intensely, as if she was trying to gaze directly through his head. He couldn't help to feel awkward.

_She's trying to psych me out, intimidate me,_ he thought. _It's not going to work. She's just a kid. I've interrogated cold-hearted criminals and I've done just fine, so I know I can handle this kid._

"Good afternoon, Lucy," Agent West said, trying to end the uncomfortable silence.

Lucy glanced at him, frustrated, with a "you've got to be kidding me" expression.

Agent West cleared his throat. "Well, um, I don't know if you know this, but I've been sent here to ask you a few questions." The girl continued to stare at him. "The officers in charge here think that the prisoners here have affiliations with other…" He searched for the right word as Lucy sighed, annoyed. "…unique individuals like yourself. I've been told that I can offer you a shorter sentence here if you give me the names of any others that you know."

Lucy pulled her long, brown hair behind her ears. She didn't give any indication that she was going to speak.

"All you have to do is give me some names."

She remained silent.

Agent West glanced down at the closed folder on the table. He quickly glanced up at Lucy and back at the folder, and he flipped it open.

When he opened the folder, he was greeted by a smiling face. A picture of the prisoner was clipped to the papers in the folder, and Agent West was astonished by how different the girl looked. The girl in the picture was wearing a brightly colored shirt, while the prisoner's greasy, dirty hair sat on an old, orange jumpsuit. Agent West looked at the face in the picture. Her cheeks were rosy, her lips weren't chapped, her eyes weren't surrounded by dark circles…

Her eyes. Agent West noticed how drastically different her eyes were. In the picture, Lucy's green eyes exuded happiness, innocence, and light. In reality, her eyes were dead and empty, containing faint traces of cynicism and grief. The picture, Agent West mused, was a brief moment in time, captured forever, lost forever. He sighed, depressed. _Things change so drastically,_ he thought.

Agent West began to look at the few papers in the folder. The first page contained some basic information: name, birth date, social security number, address, and the like.

"You're from Delaware," he said, trying to make small talk. "I have family there."

Lucy wasn't amused.

He continued to flip through the pages. There wasn't much in there, he noticed. It didn't even give any details about her ability. The only notable items in the folder were school records.

"Good grades…" he said as he skimmed through the pages. "Excellent standardized test scores… and your permanent record is clean as a whistle- not even a single detention."

Breathing deeply, Lucy yawned and scratched her forehead.

Agent West sighed. "Look, Lucy. I can tell you're not happy I'm here, but the sooner you talk, the sooner I leave you alone." He paused. "This deal is good, Lucy. You're young. You've been cooped up here for a while- months, probably. This is your ticket to freedom."

Lucy didn't say anything. She stared at him.

_She's not going to talk…unless I beat her at her own game,_ Agent West thought. Smirking proudly and staring at the girl, he put his elbows on the cold, metal table, clasped his hands together, and leaned forward, close to invading Lucy's personal space. She blinked and flinched, surprised, and leaned back a bit in her chair.

"When you talk, I leave."

When Hudson came back an hour later, he found Agent West in the same position with Lucy glaring angrily at him.

Hudson opened the cell door. "Time to go, West."

Agent West stood up. "Have a good day, Lucy. See you tomorrow."

Every day when Agent West returned, he walked into the cell, sat at the table, and leaned dangerously close to Lucy's personal space. She didn't talk for about a week and a half. 


	5. Chapter 5

Eleven days after their first meeting, Agent West came once again to Lucy's cell in the Petrelli Facility for Atypical Humans. When he arrived at the facility, Hudson escorted him to her cell, just as he did every day. Hudson unlocked the cell and let Agent West in.

"Good morning, good morning, good morning!" Hudson yelled obnoxiously at Lucy. "How are you this beautiful morning, hun? Man, is it a beautiful day! It's nice and warm, the sun is shining… just beautiful. _You_ wouldn't know, would ya, Lucy. _You've _been in here for ten months! Haven't seen the sun in ages, _have_ ya?" He smirked proudly. Lucy glared at him, breathing deeply, her nose wrinkling up a bit in anger. "Isn't that right, West?" he added.

Agent West didn't respond. He sat down at the little table and sighed.

"Be back in a bit," Hudson said, smiling, as he closed and locked the cell.

Lucy sat at the table, put her elbows on the table, and placed her head in her hands.

"Hello," Agent West said, putting a warm smile on his face.

Lucy glanced up at him, obviously filled with anxiety. She was breathing loudly.

Agent West couldn't help but feel upset for her. As if it wasn't torture enough to be locked away, isolated, for months, Lucy had to endure Hudson's taunting every day. "Want to give me some names?" he asked sympathetically.

She didn't respond, her forehead still placed in her hands.

"All right, then, Lucy." Agent West could tell that Lucy was distraught. Instead of leaning toward her to make her uncomfortable like he normally did, he decided to sit back in his stiff chair and give her space. He knew she needed it.

They sat in silence, and neither of them moved. After fifteen minutes, Agent West noticed that Lucy was silently sobbing, trying as hard as possible to be unobtrusive. He felt terrible._ She's just a kid, _he thought.

Lucy continued to breathe deeply in an attempt to gain control of her emotions. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out everything around her, but she couldn't escape from her misery.

"I…" she said slowly, her voice wavering.

Agent West's eyes widened in shock.

"I… I can't take this anymore. I just can't. I can't take being stuck in here with Hudson treating me like _garbage_ and you _staring_ at me like I'm some sort of criminal mastermind or something- I just can't!" She started to cry a bit louder, but her sobs were still barely audible.

"This will all go away if you just give me some names-"

"I don't have any names!" she interrupted, flustered. "I've never met anyone else like me- not even the whole time I've been here! What did you expect? I don't have some kind of sixth sense or anything that lets me know who's special and who's not! It doesn't work like that! Or maybe you thought that there was some, like, conspiracy theory or underground group of us. How is that even possible? What did you think I was going to know? I'm just a teenager!

"A teenager in a maximum security prison," Agent West replied evenly. "You had to have done something pretty awful to get yourself in a place like this."

"I didn't."

"Then why are you here?"

"I don't _know_! I mean, one day I was at home minding my own business, and the next day I was here!"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not a criminal. I didn't do anything to deserve this crap!" Lucy paused and took a deep breath, trying to gain her composure. "On the afternoon I was taken, I was home alone writing a paper for school. All of a sudden, a bunch of guys in SWAT outfits or something crashed through the windows and the doors and tried to knock me out. I tried to hold them off… but I couldn't. There were too many of them… I wasn't strong enough…" She started to sob again.

"Keep going."

"They knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was in the lab in the basement here. They ran tests on me, tried to see how my powers worked. I was there for a month, and then they brought me up here. I've been here ever since." She hesitated. "What month is it?"

"February."

"Oh, God. Almost a _year_…" She cried again, louder than before. "My parents… they don't know what happened to me. For all they know, I ran away or something. They may even think I'm _dead_… Oh God, they may think I've been dead all this time! It would _kill_ them if they thought I was dead! Oh God… I can't imagine how upset they are…"

As Lucy cried and rambled on in her sadness, Agent West felt incredibly terrible. If Lucy was telling the truth, it meant that she was an innocent kid taken who was into custody with no warning or explanation. Her only crime was being different. _Maybe…_ Agent West thought. _Maybe all the prisoners here are innocent._

_No, that can't be true. These people had to have broken some law to be put in here. They had to be…_

But Agent West watched Lucy cry, and he could tell that she was truly distraught. He knew she wasn't pretending.

"Lucy, I'll make you another deal. I'll find a way to contact your parents to let them know you're alive, and you can tell me anything you know that could be useful. It doesn't have to be names. Maybe just something about how you got your abilities, how they work… anything."

"I already _told_ you, I don't _know_ any names. And the people downstairs already found out everything they need to know about my powers. I don't have anything you want!" She kept crying.

Agent West paused. "Are you telling me the truth? You know, about the circumstances of your arrest?"

"Yes!" she wailed. "I swear I'm telling the truth! I swear! I swear…"

_I know I'm going to regret this, _Agent West thought, _but I have to help her. She needs someone to help her._ "I'll see what I can do, Lucy. I can't make any promises."

Astonished, Lucy looked up at him. "Thank you," she said gratefully, her tears subsiding. "Thank you so much."

At that moment, Hudson came and opened the cell door. He looked at Lucy's damp cheeks. "You got her to _cry_, West? Whoa. Not so tough, _are_ ya, Lucy?

"Shut up, Hudson," Lucy proclaimed angrily. "Nobody _asked_ you!"

"She speaks!" He grinned ear to ear with a hint of malice. "Oh, Lucy, it's been _so long_ since I've heard your voice! I've been so _lonely_!"

"Leave me alone, jerk."

Agent West sighed as he stood up and walked towards the door. "See you tomorrow, Lucy."

When Agent West and Hudson left, Lucy stood up and walked over to her cot. She laid down and fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

When Agent West returned the next day, Lucy was already sitting at the table in her cell. Hudson unlocked the cell door. He handed Agent West a spoon and a bowl filled with a beige mush that had the consistency of oatmeal and pudding mixed together. "Give Lucy her lunch, will ya?"

"Sure," Agent West replied coolly.

Hudson winked at Lucy as he left the cell. She rolled her eyes, and he smirked proudly. Agent West sat down at the table and put the bowl and spoon in front of Lucy.

"Did you talk to my parents?" she asked him in anticipation.

"I called the address in your file three times. No one was there."

"Oh." Lucy looked down at the table.

"They could have moved. After our session today, I'm going to talk to one of the officers in charge here to see if I can find out where they are."

"They're not going to help you," Lucy said, defeated.

"If I tell them it'll help me learn something, they will."

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Lucy stared at her sub-par lunch, but she didn't pick up her spoon.

"You should eat something," Agent West said kindly, watching her examine her food.

"I'd rather not."

"Why?"

Lucy hesitated and broke eye contact with Agent West. "I'm not hungry."

"You're lying," Agent West said accusingly.

Lucy sighed and looked back at him. "Hudson told me once that he puts poison in my food."

Agent West chuckled a bit in disbelief. "You don't really think he meant that, do you? Hudson's all talk."

"I dunno. He's the kind of weirdo who can say something like that with a straight face, completely seriously. And you can never know if he's lying or not when he says something like that." She sighed hopelessly. "He's just a glorified bully- just like… kids in school."

"What do you mean?" Agent West asked curiously.

"It's not important."

"No, I want to know. Tell me."

Lucy took a deep breath. "When I was little, I was the new kid in school. All the other kids… they picked on me _all_ the time, and I went home crying every day. I was always so _sad_. I would ask my parents, 'why are they being so mean to me?' And they would tell me it was because they were _jealous_ of me. They said that those kids were insecure and they could see that I was happy and smart and different. They even said once or twice that I had some kind of _light_ from God that those kids couldn't really understand. And those kids hated that I was happy and different, so they picked on me to make themselves feel better, to bring me to their level." She paused and sighed, staring off into the corner of the room, deep in concentration. "Then when I was in high school, I got my powers. I became even _more_ different than I could have imagined. And then I was taken here." Lucy chuckled. "Funny, things aren't so different now. Not very different at all."

Agent West paused. He could tell that the topic was distressing her, so he decided to change it after a few more minutes of silence. "So, um, how was graduation?"

"I didn't graduate. I was taken into custody in the beginning of April, two months before graduation. I didn't even find out where I got accepted to college," she said sadly. "It would've been great to find that out."

"Oh," Agent West said. _Maybe that wasn't such a good topic, _he thought. "Um, how about prom?

"I didn't go. No date."

_Maybe not that, either._ "Is there anything even _remotely_ happy that we can talk about?"

Lucy smiled. "Very funny. To be honest, it's hard to think about happy things when you're in my situation."

Agent West paused. "What do you plan on doing when you get out of here?"

"Well… obviously I want to see my family. Then I want to let people know about this place. I want everyone to know about people like me and what we've had to go through. I want… I want to make things better for us. But I don't know how I'll do that yet. I'll figure something out, though." Lucy laughed. "I have a lot more time to think about it."

Agent West smiled. "Maybe not. You never know, right?"

"I guess so. Anything's possible."


	7. Chapter 7

After Agent West left Section 4 that day, he asked for a meeting with the head officer at the facility. Agent West was surprised when he was told that he was allowed to see the man in charge.

The head officer was the man who had given all the agents the briefing on their first day on the job. He met up with Agent West in the hallway near the building's exit.

"I was told you wanted to meet with me, Agent West."

"Yes, sir. I was wondering if I could access further information on my assignment's family."

The officer squinted, mildly perplexed. "Why would you need to do that?"

"Well, sir, I think that I could use that information as leverage to get information from her."

"_Leverage_?" the officer asked irritably. "You're supposed to be of the best new interrogators in the FBI, and you're telling me you need_ leverage_? You don't have the authority to negotiate with these prisoners, and you shouldn't even_ need_ to, for heaven's sake!" He paused. "I mean, some of the other agents have already finished with their second prisoners- and you haven't even finished with one!"

"She's a tough case," Agent West replied defensively, glancing away from the officer. "She said she'd talk if I gave her some information. Then I'll be finished."

The officer stared at him menacingly. "I'll let you access it," he said reluctantly. "But after that, you have one day. If you don't get anything by then, you're going back home. Understood?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

*******

A guard took Agent West to a small room in the facility. When he entered the cramped, windowless room, he saw a computer sitting on a tiny desk and a miniscule file cabinet sitting against one of the walls. Agent West sat at the desk and accessed Lucy's file on the computer.

This file was much more detailed than the one he was given on his first day at the facility. Date of capture, names of the agents who took her into custody, even a description of all the steps taken to prepare for the mission…

Agent West read the entire file. There was even a page written by the facility's scientists describing Lucy's abilities, but the write-up was so complicated, he couldn't make heads or tails of it. Eventually, a small link on the bottom of the page caught his attention. It was labeled "Tyler, David and Melissa".

_Her parents_, he thought. He quickly clicked on the link and read the page that popped up.

And he couldn't believe what he saw.


	8. Chapter 8

When Agent West arrived at the Petrelli Facility for Atypical Humans the next day, Hudson escorted him to Section 4.

"Today's my last day with Lucy," Agent West said sadly as he walked through the facility. He wasn't looking forward to telling Lucy what he learned the night before.

"Really? Ain't that a shame," Hudson remarked, grinning smugly as he always did. "At least that means I'll have 'er all to myself now."

Agent West slowed his walking and looked at Hudson. "Hey Hudson," he said hesitantly, "I was wondering if maybe you could lay off the wisecracks today. I can tell it upsets Lucy, and that kind of undermines all the work I'm doing."

Hudson gawked at him. "Look, buddy," he said matter-of-factly, "no offense, but _that's_ not gonna happen." He stopped smiling. "You see, all these freaks in here, they think they're so much _better_ than everyone 'cause they got _powers_ or whatever. What they don't get right away is that _I'm_ the one in power here. _They're_ locked away and _I'm _the one with the key." He laughed and smiled threateningly again. "I just remind 'em of it, that's all."

"I see," Agent West replied sadly.

Hudson led Agent West to Lucy's cell for the last time. He unlocked the door.

"Hey, Lucy! West here just told me that this is his last day with you. That means that after today, it's just you and me, babe. Just you and me." He grinned.

"Great," Lucy said sarcastically as she sat down at the table.

Agent West entered the cell and sat down across from Lucy.

"Have fun, you two," Hudson said as he closed the cell door.

Lucy looked up at Agent West when Hudson walked away. "Is it true? Is this your last day?"

He sighed. "Yes, it's true."

"What about… you know, our agreement?"

Agent West hesitated and gulped nervously. "Lucy, I was able to find the information you wanted last night. It's… not exactly what we thought. Look, I don't have to tell you…"

"Tell me."

"Well, for starters, I learned how these guys found out about your powers."

"You're beating around the bush."

"You donated blood at your school last March. At that point, the program started by Nathan Petrelli had just started. They found a way to test people's blood to see if they had abilities. Apparently, they were testing samples of donated blood to find people like you."

"Agent West-"

"They tested yours, and it turned up positive. So they found out where you lived, tracked you everywhere you went-"

"Just tell me about my parents!" Flustered, Lucy stood up, leaning over Agent West.

He paused. "You don't want to hear this."

"I do," she said adamantly. "Tell me!"

Agent West breathed deeply. "Your parents… they were miserable after you were gone. Most people told them that you had run away, but a few police officers were convinced that you had been kidnapped. They worked with your parents to find out what happened. Your parents knew about your powers, right?"

"Yes…"

"They had a feeling that your disappearance had something to do with your powers. They thought someone targeted you, so they told the police officers everything- even about your abilities. At first they didn't believe them, but they all worked together. They used every connection they had, friends of friends of friends, and eventually, somehow, they started to figure out the truth about your kidnapping. But the people that worked for Petrelli found out about how close your parents were. They knew that killing them would draw too much attention to the program, so they took your parents into custody, saying that they thought your parents had powers even though they didn't. They were put into a facility in Minnesota like this one. After they were there for a month, one of the other prisoners organized a jailbreak. Many of the prisoners, including your parents, tried to escape, but they weren't able to. The guards… they killed all the escapees. Even your parents. Lucy, I'm so sorry…"

Lucy was silent. Slowly, she sat back down in her chair. "My parents are dead," she said, her voice monotone. She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes. "It can't be true."

"Lucy, it is. I'm sorry…"

"My parents are dead…" she said again. Her lip started to quiver, and her breathing became uneven. Without warning, she slammed her fist against the metal table and began to cry. "They're dead, they're dead, they're dead… Oh God, they're dead…" She put her head back in her hands as she cried and rambled.

After about ten minutes of crying, Lucy glanced up through the plexiglass window and saw Hudson leaning against the wall in the hallway, staring at her. He was smiling even more than normal as he watched her break down. As she looked up at him, he began to chuckle, and the chuckle became an unrestrained laugh.

Scowling, Lucy stood up and ran towards the window without hesitating. "I'll kill you, Hudson!" she yelled. "I swear I'm gonna kill you!!" She started slamming her fists against the plexiglass, but it didn't budge. Lucy kept crying and yelling as she tried to break out of her cell.

Agent West frantically rushed up to Lucy and grabbed her arms. "Stop it, Lucy! Don't do something you're going to regret!"

"Get away from me!" she yelled as she pulled herself out of his grip. "I don't want to have to hurt you!"

Outside the cell, Hudson was still snickering. "Yell all you want, hun. The walls all around us are soundproof!"

Agent West inspected Lucy's eyes. He didn't see the innocence from the old picture in her file, and he didn't see the hopelessness from the first day they met. Agent West saw sadness and desperation and rage in her eyes, and he knew he had to get out of the cell if he wanted to stay safe.

He turned to Hudson outside the cell. "Hudson, let me out of here," he said, trying to sound calm.

"Why?" Hudson asked. "She's not gonna hurt anyone."

Lucy glared at him. "I wouldn't be too sure," she said coldly.

Agent West looked down at Lucy's hands. He noticed, to his surprise, that they were starting to slightly glow with a faint light.

"Hudson, let me out of here!" Agent West started to panic, his eyes darting around nervously.

"All right, take it easy," Hudson replied, annoyed. He walked over to the door as he pulled his key card out of his back pocket.

While he was facing Lucy, Agent West slowly paced backwards towards the door. "Just … stay calm, Lucy." As soon as he heard the door open, Agent West quickly turned around and started to run. He was running through the door when he felt a blast of heat, an intangible, powerful force, push him strongly through the door frame and against the wall opposite the door.

Hudson scrambled towards the shiny suit that hung on the wall, but before he could reach it, Lucy ran through the door and grabbed him by his shirt collar. He squirmed free and tried to reach a red button on the wall. When he was about to push it, he was blinded by an immensely brilliant light that illuminated all the dark corners of the room. He screamed and fell to the ground, but Lucy pulled him up by the arm and pinned him to the wall.

Agent West watched as Hudson yelled about his eyes.

"I can't see!" Hudson yelled in pain. "I can't see! Help! Lucy, you b-"

"Yell all you want, Hudson," Lucy said harshly, smirking a bit. "All the walls are soundproofed."

"West, hit the panic button!" Hudson pleaded with Agent West, his sightless eyes darting aimlessly. Agent West didn't budge.

"I hate you, Hudson, but I consider myself to be a fairly kind and generous person. So I'm gonna let you decide how you're gonna die." Lucy paused. "Fast or slow?"

In his pain, Hudson managed to smile. "Slow."

Lucy raised her eyebrows. "Bad choice," she said. As she kept Hudson pinned to the wall with one hand, she raised up the other hand and pointed her palm at his forehead. Suddenly, tiny beams of light sprang out of various points on her palm, converged at a point an inch off of her palm, and turned into a thicker, laser-like beam of light that hit Hudson square in the forehead. The intense beam started to burn a hole in his forehead. Hudson screamed, and the laser slowly seared through his skin and skull until he became deathly quiet.

Agent West couldn't believe what he had just seen . "Lucy, what… what did you do?" he asked as she dropped Hudson's body.

"I killed him," Lucy replied unsympathetically. "Isn't it obvious?" She picked up the key card that Hudson had dropped earlier and walked over to the next cell. When she opened the door, she called into the cell. "Come on out," she said to the prisoner without entering the cell. "We're busting out of here."

"Lucy," Agent West said, still shocked, "do you even realize what you've done? You just… you went past the point of no return! Now they're gonna have a _reason_ to keep you here forever!"

"That's why I'm getting out," she replied as Matt Parkman left his cell. She used a small laser beam to cut the latch off of his ability-inhibiting helmet. He thanked her, and she gave him the key card. "Go let out everyone else."

Agent West was still astonished. "Do you have a plan?"

"Nope."

"Do you even care that you just _killed_ a man?

"Not really."

"_God_, Lucy, why are you doing this?"

Lucy glanced at Hudson's dead body and looked back at Agent West. "My parents died for my life, trying to get me free," she said thoughtfully. "I'm gonna make sure they didn't die for nothing. I'm not gonna _rot_ in this place for the rest of my life. Ant I'm not gonna let jerks like _Hudson_ push me around ever again."

At that point, the four other prisoners of Section 4 were waiting at the door.

Agent West looked at the panic button on the wall. "I have to press that button, Lucy," he said. "If I don't, I'll lose my job…or worse."

"West…"

"I have to… I have to press the button."

"West, no…"

Agent West stared at the button. If he pushed it and alerted the guards, Lucy and the other four prisoners would spend the rest of their lives in the Petrelli Facility for Atypical Humans, destined to live out their existences as sub-human science projects. If he didn't… He didn't know what bad things would happen to _him_.

He pondered this for a moment. Then he spoke. "I'll give you two minutes. Then I'll push the panic button."

"West…" Lucy said gratefully, smiling genuinely. "Thank you."

"Better get moving."


	9. Chapter 9

Lucy walked over to her four fellow prisoners: Parkman; Janet; Eric, a young man; and Susan, a middle-aged woman.

"There are five guards in the main room," Parkman told Lucy when she came over.

"How can you tell?"

"I can hear their thoughts."

"Oh," Lucy said, taken aback. She looked at the thick, metal door in front of her. "Let me see if I can undo this lock." She started to burn through the thick metal with a hot, bright laser, but the metal was too strong.

"Let me see what I can do," said Eric. He stared at the lock until a huge laser beam shot out of his eyes and melted the metal.

"I'll handle these few guards," Parkman said. He pushed the door open and entered the large, rectangular main room. The five guards noticed the escapees immediately and ran over towards them.

"Stop," Parkman said calmly as the guards came close. He tilted his head slightly. "Go and free as many of the other prisoners as you can."

The guards were puzzled at first. Then, they fanned out wordlessly to the other sections of the prison. After a minute or so, about ten other prisoners filed onto the main room and joined Lucy's group of escapees.

Then the sirens started to blare obnoxiously. _Agent West_, Lucy thought. Dozens of guards dashed into the room, armed with tranquilizer guns.

"Freeze!" they shouted. "No one move!"

One or two of the prisoners raised their hands over their heads.

Lucy started to hurl clusters of concentrated light energy at the guards. Other prisoners followed suit, throwing fireballs and running super-fast and landing super-strong punches. Water and lightning and concrete and tranquilizer darts flew through the air. Blood and bodies fell to the ground. More prisoners came out of the other sections of the prison and joined the brawl. Screams and thuds and yells and explosions echoed throughout the massive room.

"Everyone to the exit!" Lucy shouted authoritatively. A stream of orange jumpsuits flowed through the room, quickly meandering towards freedom. More and more prisoners came, with more and more guards following in pursuit.

When the prisoners reached the exit door at the end of the room, one of them kicked the door down with super-human strength. The prisoners started to sprint out the small door, but the group of escapees was so large that they were forced to bottleneck at the exit. The guards used this as an opportunity to shoot some of the prisoners with their tranquilizers. A few strong captives tried to carry out their unconscious allies, but some of the prisoners laid on the floor, unmoving, left behind.

More guards came. As the last dozen prisoners tried to escape, Lucy and a few others attempted to hold off the guards. Lucy launched spheres of light energy at the guards, who screamed and toppled over one by one. After a few minutes, she started to get tired. She glanced behind her to see if the exit was clear. As soon as she looked forward, she saw a dart fly towards her and hit her in the arm.

She pulled the dart out of her arm and tried to keep fighting, but she was too tired.

_I've got to get out…_

The room started to spin. Out of breath, Lucy staggered a bit, trying to keep her balance, but she collapsed and fell unconscious.

The head officer walked into the main room and saw the wreckage. At least thirty of his guards were dead, by his estimation, and only about five or six of the escaped prisoners were tranquilized and recaptured.

His second-in-command approached him. "Thirty two prisoners got out, sir," he explained, ashamed. "We think this all started in Section 4, where the panic alarm was activated."

The head officer walked to Section 4 and saw Agent West sitting on the floor.

"Did you set off the alarm, West?" the officer asked interrogatively.

"Yes, sir," he replied dejectedly, looking up at the officer.

"What happened?"

"Well," Agent West explained, "when I was interrogating my prisoner, she went berserk. Broke out of her cell and killed the guard. I pressed the panic button when she got out." He hesitated. "What was that? Her power, I mean."

"Light manipulation. The guys downstairs call it lumikinesis. Pretty potent ability, and awfully rare, too."

Agent West glanced out the door and saw too guards carrying Lucy's limp body across the main room. "Is she… dead?" he asked sincerely, looking back at the head officer.

"Nope. Just unconscious." He paused. "I'm glad we at least got the instigator back in custody. We're sending her down to the lab for some more tests. She'll be here for a long time."

"That's good," West said, trying to sound convincing.

"I have just one more question for you, Agent West."

"What?"

"Well, our security cameras in the main room of the facility show that the first prisoners entered the room at 1:46, but the panic alarm didn't go off until a minute and forty eight seconds after." He looked at West accusingly. "How do you explain that?"

"Well, um, the girl threatened to kill me if I set off the alarm before they left the room," he lied nervously, looking away from the officer.

The officer shook his head and sighed. "Isn't this a shame. I thought they taught you in FBI training not to get attached to your prisoners," the officer said.

"Agent West turned back to him. "What-"

"It seems I'm in quite a pickle." He pulled out a gun and pointed it at Agent West, who, startled, sat up straight with widened eyes. "If I kill you now, Agent West, the Bureau will start asking questions about what went on here. But if I let you go, you'll tell everyone the truth."

"I won't tell," Agent West said, flustered. "I promise!"

"I don't want to take any chances," the officer replied coolly. Without hesitation, he shot Agent West in the head.

The End


End file.
